Director Danny Boyle divulged he wanted to cast Robert Pattinson in his now-canned James Bond film. Photo / Getty Images
Director Danny Boyle divulged he wanted to cast Robert Pattinson in his now-canned James Bond film. Photo / Getty Images
Danny Boyle has revealed his James Bond movie would have been set in Russia.
The 65-year-old director was due to helm the 25th film in the iconic franchise - Daniel Craig's last outing as 007 - but he dropped out of the motion picture due to "creative differences", and he has now told how it would have seen Bond go back to his roots.
He said: "I remember thinking, 'Should I really get involved in franchises?' Because they don't really want something different.
"They want you to freshen it up a bit, but not really challenge it, and we wanted to do something different with it.
"Weirdly - it would have been very topical now - it was all set in Russia, which is of course where Bond came from, out of the Cold War."
The Slumdog Millionaire director feels it was a "shame" he didn't get to make a Bond movie, claiming there was a loss of "confidence" over his plot idea.
Speaking to Esquire UK magazine, he added: "It was set in present-day Russia and went back to his origins, and they just lost, what's the word... they just lost confidence in it. It was a shame really."
'No Time to Die' would have turned out very differently if directed by visionary auteur Danny Boyle. Photo / Getty Images
This comes after Russia invaded Ukraine in February resulting in more than 3000 civilian deaths, according to The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Boyle also revealed that when thinking of his dream casting for Bond, he hoped Robert Pattinson would swap a Batsuit for a martini. Boyle stated that he still thinks Pattinson "would be a great Bond".
In August 2018, it was confirmed Boyle had dropped out of directing the 25th Bond movie.
A tweet from the official 007 Twitter account read: "Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig today announced that due to creative differences Danny Boyle has decided to no longer direct Bond 25."
Cary Fukunaga later took Danny's place and directed Craig in No Time to Die.
